Tuesday, June 26, 2012

06/27/2012
There really is a problem with this government under Noynoy. It jumps
to conclusions much too easily, then later, with a rotten egg on its
face, the same government quickly changes its tune, but not before
causing diplomatic ties to deteriorate.

In the case of Jordanian
journalist Baker Atyani and his two Filipino crew, for over a week,
Noynoy, his aides, Jesse Robredo, his military and police along with the
Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan, insisted that he was neither missing nor abducted
by the Abu Sayyaf, while announcing that Atyani is an Abu Sayyaf conduit
and that no rescue operations would be launched.

Where they based
their conclusion that Atyani is in cahoots with the terrorist group is,
as claimed by Noynoy and his aides, due to the fact that Atyani had
been to the country at least three times and interviewed the Abu Sayyaf,
plus the fact that that he had interviewed Osama bin Laden before the
US Seals assassinated the former al-Qaeda leader.

Naturally, after
the Jordanian government, through its foreign ministry, confirmed that
its national had been kidnapped by the terrorist group, Noynoy and his
aides suddenly admitted that Atyani and his crew have been kidnapped,
but in trying to save face, they insisted that the journalist went there
voluntarily. What crap they spew. Why would a journalist tell, or even
ask the government for permission to interview the Abu Sayyaf?.... MORE

06/27/2012
Now is Noynoy’s chance to play hardball with China now that a Filipino
fisherman has died after a fishing boat was supposedly rammed by what
the Filipino boat crew identified as Chinese in an incident that
happened very close to Scarborough Shoal where a standoff ensued between
Philippine and Chinese vessels over rival territorial claims.
The
incident happened well within Philippine territory, off Bolinao,
Pangasinan, where there was no reason for a Chinese vessel to be present
in the area, much more for it to ram a Filipino vessel.

It seems that without American imprimatur, Noynoy cannot act on his own in defending the country’s boundaries.

The
standoff at Scarborough Shoal happened shortly after Noynoy received
the Philippine Navy’s first decent warship for ages, a decommissioned
cutter of the US Coast Guard, which was named BRP Gregorio del Pilar. As
soon as the cutter arrived in the country, it sailed off to the
disputed shoal to supposedly arrest Chinese fishermen who have long been
using the shoal along with their Filipino counterparts without any
trouble.

The sudden appearance of a Navy warship in the disputed
area touched off heated diplomatic exchanges between the Philippines and
China, with both sides maintaining the presence of government-owned
vessels in the area..... MORE

The Syrians are in hopeful expectation of an international meeting convened by Russia, and negotiations are underway to reach a solution to the crisis of this nation that survives in the Levant.

In this sense, the press reflects that the visit that will be carried out in Iran in the morning with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss the situation in Syria and preparations for the meeting of the countries of the G-6 around the nuclear program of Iran

The Russian news agency ITAR-TASS indicated in a report that the purpose of the meeting will be mainly to seek actions to support the implementation of the peace plan of the Special Envoy of the UN, Kofi Annan, and to put an end to the problems that impede it..... MORESource: RT.com

Ratings agency Moody's has cut the ratings of 28 Spanish banks
following a June 13 downgrade of Spain's sovereign rating by three
notches.

The banks' long-term debt and deposit ratings have been downgraded by
one to four notches. The rating of Bankia, one the country’s largest
banks, has been cut to junk status.

Moody’s cited two main factors
behind the move: the agency’s assessment of Spain's reduced
creditworthiness, and an “expectation that the banks' exposures to
commercial real estate (CRE) will likely cause higher losses, which
might increase the likelihood that these banks will require external
support.”.... MORE

06/27/2012
President Erap’s daughter Jackie Ejercito and husband Beaver Lopez
hosted our lunch get-together in their new house last Sunday. We were
told the next mayor of Manila would be a little late owing to the mass
at San Juan, for it was also “Araw ng San Juan”. Soon enough he was
jauntily walking in, attired in trademark orange polo shirt, and
matching orange Converse rubber shoes.

And then it was lunch.

Talk
naturally drifted to Dolphy, for even those who barely knew him wanted
to know how he was doing. Someone volunteered overhearing that Eddie
Garcia was not keen on seeing his fellow Sampaguita Pictures contract
actor on the sickbed, although later on in the day Garcia ended up
dropping by to see the well-loved comedian at the Intensive Care Unit,
after the healing mass at the hospital.

06/27/2012
Two weeks ago, in the first part of this account, we identified three
kinds of splits in the labor movement — the party-political split, the
split influenced by employers, and the split engineered by government.
Last week, there was the split caused by labor-leader paternalism, or
the desire to escape it — for the TUPAS-FSM split might be seen as an
example of this. (At the lower levels of the movement there must have
been countless undocumented examples of this kind of split over the
years, along with those caused by personality differences and the
careerism of leaders.)

We might also add that while not
necessarily causing splits, foreign funding like that advanced by the
Asian-American Free Labor Institute has acted as a means of fencing off
conservative organizations from their more progressive brethren. And
finally, we have the example of the post-1993 splits, which we might dub
the “Red International” type of split. This requires some explanation.

Following
the Russian Revolution in 1917, a number of communist-led organizations
were established on an international level with the aim of gaining
influence in the labor and peasant movements. One such organization was
the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU), established in 1921. As
the international communist movement entered its most sectarian period
(characterized by the slogan “class against class”), the RILU saw the
aim of communists as attempting to win the support of the labor movement
in their own country for the cause of revolution, and if the existing
trade unions could not so be won, to establish “red alternatives.”.... MORE

Apart
from allowing armed foreign troops and bases into the country, on
claims that the bases and American servicemen’s “visits” are temporary
and on a “rotational’ basis despite the United States bases in Mindanao
being virtually permanent, President Aquino has again violated the
Constitution when it allowed another United States nuclear-powered
vessel to enter Philippine territory.

The nuclear-powered
submarine yesterday docked in Subic Bay for a supposed routine port call
— the second such “visit” by US attack seacraft since the standoff
between the Philippines and China over the disputed Scarborough Shoal
erupted last April.

Article ll, Section 8 of the 1987 Philippine
Constitution, under State policies, mandated by the Filipino people,
states that the “Philippines, consistent with the national interest,
adopts and pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its
territory.”.... MORE

06/27/2012
Malacaang should be cautious in pushing the immediate ratification by
the Senate of the proposed Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SoVFA)
with Australia amid news reports on record of numerous cases of physical
and sexual abuse of minors, supposedly committed by members of the
Australian armed forces.
An article that came out in the New York Times last June 15 said Australian
Prime Minister Julia Gillard raised the possibility of a high-level
public inquiry or convening a royal commission, a major investigative
body occasionally used by some countries of the Commonwealth, to
investigate sensitive public issues.

The matter has come to the
attention of Senators Gregorio Honasan and Joker Arroyo and both urged
the Executive department to exercise caution before having the SoVFA
rushed for plenary approval..... MORE

Having
already been cleared from various Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP)
deal-related charges, businessman Herminio Disini has tightened the
noose on the libel case he had filed against former Chief
Justice-turned-columnist Artemio Panganiban for his repeated use of the
phrase “go between” in reference to him in one of his column articles.

Included in the libel suit filed by Disini is the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

In
his Reply-Affidavit to Respondents’ Counter-Affidavits last Friday, he
said “Mr. Panganiban ascribed to me the commission of a crime,
particularly corruption of a public official and violation of the
Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, when
he described me as Westinghouse’s ‘go between’ with, and a ‘close
personal associate of former President Ferdinand Marcos.’”.... MORE

In
what appears to be a sneak preview of his third State of the Nation
Address (Sona), no less than the main man on center stage hinted “money”
and “crown” as the highlights when he opens Congress sessions in the
third week of July.

In a speech before administering the
oath-taking of the Liberal Party’s newest members in Baguio City,
President Aquino hinted that the financial capability of the present
government to promptly deliver services and provide immediate help to
its constituents gave it distinction from the previous administrations.

“I
am not saying that our country is drowning in cash but we now have the
capability to give to our bosses what is due them all at once, without
favoring anyone and in the quickest time possible,” Aquino told his
audience at the Benguet State University..... MORE

06/27/2012
For occupying and converting Sabsaban Falls into an eco-tourism resort
without a clearance from the Palawan Council Sustainable Development
(PCSD), charges have been filed against the ABS-CBN Foundation (ACF) and
18 local government officials, PCSD legal chief Adel Belena said.

Belena
said the ACF-Bantay Kalikasan, which occupied the falls within the
timberland in Brookes’ Point, Palawan and converted them into a resort
violated Administrative Order (AO) 6. The case marked as Administrative
Case 438 is now pending with the PCSD Adjudication Board (PAB).

AO
6 provides the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 7611
or the Strategic Environmental Plan (SEP) for Palawan Act. The order
requires a SEP clearance for all projects affecting the environment and
natural resources of Palawan, including government projects..... MORE

06/27/2012
All newlyweds should consider it a moral duty to observe reproductive
health during marriage, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago said at a posh
Cebu City wedding.

Santiago, as principal wedding sponsor and
guest speaker last Saturday, exhorted a newly married couple to “follow
the RH paradigm” at a five-star hotel wedding reception attended by some
of the most prominent Cebu City families.

“Reproductive health is
the new wave of the future. The critics are flaying a dead horse. To
mix metaphors, the critics are missing the boat. In the 2013 elections,
the voters will educate the non-educable,” said Santiago..... MORE

06/27/2012
The City of Makati will deploy 45 teams from the Plastic Monitoring
Task Force (PMTF) to inspect 738 establishments starting June 26 to
inspect their stock inventory of plastic and other non-biodegradable
materials and evaluate their compliance with the Solid Waste Management
Code of Makati.

Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay said Chapter 9 of the
code, also known as City Ordinance 2003-095, gives food and retail
establishments nine years to dispose of all their stocks of plastics,
styrofoam and similar materials and to replace them with
environment-friendly materials.

“We are now in the ninth year of
implementing the ordinance, so we believe we have given establishments
enough time to prepare for the full phase-out being required of them.
The new executive order (EO) I issued recently has, in fact, extended
the deadline to June 20, 2013,” Binay said..... MORE